


Right and Easy

by isopsephy



Category: Blindspot (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 14:48:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17061785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isopsephy/pseuds/isopsephy
Summary: Jane, Patterson, and the Goblet of Fire





	Right and Easy

**Author's Note:**

> set circa beginning of season 2

Patterson felt like it was an easy choice to set the book back in Jane’s locker. She had the same locker she’d had before she left/was abducted to a CIA black site and she hadn’t even locked it. Patterson had the uneasy thought that maybe someone had told her she couldn’t lock it even though things were supposed to be returning to business as usual. Which was why she put the book in Jane’s locker; part of business as usual was Patterson loaning Jane books. 

The book in question was her copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It was somewhat battered from years of rereading it before the release of every new book and all the movies. Before she set it back in Jane’s mostly empty locker it had been in Patterson’s desk for months. For a few weeks previous to that it had been in the evidence lockup. 

She’d had to go down to get it back after it was confiscated from Jane’s locker. They’d been reluctant to let it go since anything connected to Jane’s case carried a bit of cache but there was no evidence that Jane had been using it for anything nefarious. 

Also it does have PATTERSON written on the inside of the front cover and she had made herself a quiet nuisance at the desk until they’d given it back just to get her to leave. 

Jane had been making her way through the Harry Potter series ever since her first month with the team. During one of their girl’s nights Patterson and Zapata had started bickering about whether Weller was a Hufflepuff or a Gryffindor to Jane’s utter bewilderment. Patterson had lent her Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone as part of her cultural education and Jane had been gleefully making her way through the series ever since. She gotten to Goblet of Fire before everything had fallen apart. 

Patterson had been meaning to take it home and put it back in the empty space on her bookshelf but she kept forgetting and then pulling the drawer open and seeing it again and feeling a kind of hollowness. Now that Jane was back at the FBI she could have the book back. Patterson hoped it would mend a bridge at least a little. 

“Patterson?” Jane was hesitant in the doorway of the lab with her hands clasped behind her back.

“Hey Jane what’s up?” Patterson said.

She set the book on the desk. Patterson had the sudden realization that it was an easy choice but perhaps not a simple one. “This was in my locker. I don’t know why they didn’t take it with everything else.” 

“They did. I put it back.” Patterson said. “I thought you might like to start reading it again.” 

Jane bit her lip and dropped her gaze to the book. Patterson’s heart sank. She hadn’t considered the possibility of Jane not wanting this peace offering. Maybe being tortured and then ostracized would make someone not want to read a kids book about wizard school anymore. 

“If you don’t want to though that’s fine too. I can take it.” 

She reached toward the book and Jane placed her hands on it quickly, protectively.

“No I want to-to finish reading it.” Jane wasn’t looking at her focused on her own hands on the cover of the book. “I just don’t understand why you’d give it to me.” Her voice was very soft. 

“What do you mean?” Patterson asked but she was just buying time. She had a pretty good idea what Jane meant. The vibe around the office has been pretty blatantly uncomfortable. 

“Zapata shot me. Reid thinks I’m a pawn or worse. Kurt—“ Jane broke off and swallowed hard. “Kurt won’t even look at me. I don’t understand—why you’re not angry with me too.” 

Patterson stepped a little closer to Jane. 

“I miss Mayfair too, Jane, just like the rest of the team but- I don’t think you killed her. Ok? I think you made a mistake. A fairly major set of mistakes—miscalculations about who to trust and what choices to make.”  
Patterson sighed and braced herself against the hellish choking feeling of talking about her own errors in judgement.  
“But I understand making that kind of mistake all right? So I miss Mayfair. But I missed you too. And I don’t think I can blame you for her death. I don’t think its fair to blame you and be absolved of- of what happened to David. I just—I don’t feel like being angry with you, ok?” 

Jane blinked and Patterson watched a tear drop onto the cover of the book. She almost wants to reach out and grip Jane’s hand but the space between them felt raw like too much movement would cause Jane to bolt.

“Ok,”Jane said and picked the book up to leave.

At the door she paused,”Does it have a happy ending?”

Patterson made eye contact with her for the first time in ages and said “It get worse before it gets better.”

Jane nodded and left the room with the book tucked under her arm.


End file.
